I think, especially when you're in college, each book that you're reading tends to tell you who you are.

The trees like lungs filling with air. My sister, the mean one, pulling my hair.

I went into the desert to forget about you. But the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sku was the color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you.

When I think back about my immediate reaction to that redheads girl, it seems to spring from an appreciation of natural beauty. I mean the heart pleasure you get from looking at speckled leaves or the palimpsested bark of plane trees in Provence. There was something richly appealing to her color combination, the ginger snaps floating in the milk-white skin, the golden highlights in the strawberry hair. it was like autumn, looking at her. It was like driving up north to see the colors.

that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbon’s could hardly wait for the night to forget themselves in sleep

They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us.

No matter how long your've been at it, you always start from scratch.